Minority Ethnic Groups in Ireland - Paulina Chiwangu

I was asked to talk, in this paper, about minority ethnic groups
in Ireland. This presented a number of problems for me. Firstly, it
was not stated clearly which specific ethnic groups my paper should
target. I wondered whether it would not have been a better idea to
ask me to talk about racism in Irish society! Secondly, I was afraid,
given the connotations which often accompany terms like 'ethnic
minority', that it could strengthen the assumption that it is the
presence of the 'minority groups' that brings racism into Ireland or
elsewhere. Thirdly, most of the time when we talk about minority
ethnic groups, we encounter ideas of multiculturalism. We try to find
solutions, such as suggesting that members of different ethnic groups
learn about each other's culture. There is nothing wrong with
learning from other cultures. However, learning about other cultures
is not the same as learning about our own racism. If we are going to
compare our cultures objectively, we must first know our own racism.
Fourthly, I am afraid that ethnicity creates images of racial
disadvantages and racial prejudice to such an extent that it dilutes
the necessity of addressing institutional racism. It takes away the
"objective facts of institutional racism and makes them
subjective".1 This leads to the
belief that what we have to tackle is not the system, is not power,
is not the immigration laws and officers, but instead puts the
emphasis on changing people's attitudes.2

This paper has two parts. In the first part, I will try to analyse
the position of minority groups in Ireland. In the second part I will
highlight the lack of representation of black achievers, which has
contributed to racism against them. For the purpose of this paper,
minority groups refers to black people, i.e. Africans, Asians,
Caribbeans.

Are there any minority ethnic groups in Ireland?

In discussing minority ethnic groups, one of the first questions
one could ask is: Are there any minority ethnic groups in Ireland?
The answer is simple: yes, there is a diversity of ethnic minorities
in Ireland. These include the Travelling community (21,000), which is
the largest; Africans, Asians and people from the Caribbean (20,000);
the Jewish community (3,000), (some of whom have migrated, mainly to
the United States of America); asylum seekers and
refugees.3 According to the
statistics of the Department of Justice, Immigration and Citizenship
Division, there are 33,000 legally registered foreigners living in
Ireland in 1995.4

What is their position? Does racism exist in Ireland?

When one asks me to outline the position of minority ethnic groups
in Ireland, to me it is the same as asking whether racism exists in
Ireland or not! This is the question I have been facing for the six
years that I have been in Ireland. In most cases, black people in
Ireland, including myself, find this question a very difficult one.
Usually the person who asks this question is primarily interested in
daily experiences of prejudice. Most often the question does not
extend to exploring the manifestation of racism at deeper levels.
These shortcomings make the victim give a simple answer, like "yes"
or "no". Most often the answer given is "no". However, this answer
does not justify the notion that Ireland is free from racism.

The difficulties of analysing Irish racism

The above paragraph gives some illustration of how difficult it is
to analyse Irish racism. It is important to note that to some extent,
the Irish people and the foreigners share a joint responsibility for
this misrepresention of the Irish position. McVeigh noted that some
black people are adverse to admitting that Irish racism exists
because of the Irish tradition of internationalism and
anti-imperialism. He suggests that the reason for this hesitancy is
that they are afraid of threatening the Irish tradition of
anti-imperialistic alliances.5

The issue of Irish racism is further complicated by a number of
factors. Firstly, Irish racism is usually analysed in comparison to
other European countries where minority groups form a much higher
proportion of the population than in Ireland. Though minority groups
do face fascism in Ireland, such comparisons have the effect of
curtailing the extent to which Irish racism can become visible.
Secondly, the fact that most members of minority groups are in
Ireland on a temporary basis (e.g. as students, tourists, or on fixed
term job appointments), means that it is more difficult for Irish
people to identify them as a threat to their society. Finally,
wide-spread generalisations about the overt friendliness of the Irish
towards foreigners overshadows any impression of insecurity and fear
in the presence of foreigners. In order to identify xenophobia and
racism in Irish society one needs to go beyond this shallow or
superficial impression of openness.

The specificity of Irish racism

It has been noted above that the number of minority ethnic groups
in Ireland is limited. Despite this limitation, however, there are a
number of cases where incidents of racial attacks and discrimination
have been reported. For instance, "repeated attacks on Jewish shops
in Dublin's south inner city in 1986; a group of travelling people
were barred from participating in an anti-racism meeting in a Dublin
hotel in September 1987; in November 1987, a Moroccan, his Irish wife
and their daughter started suffering from physical and verbal abuse
in December the same year, a black man, his Irish wife and
three children began experiencing a similar, but more violent ordeal
".6 Considering these
cases, Irish racism could be viewed from two angles: 'everyday
racism' and 'state engineered racism'.

Everyday racism refers to experiences of day-to-day discrimination
in accommodation, buses, night clubs, pubs, restaurants, etc. It is
obvious that racism on this level does exist in Ireland. A number of
black people have reported facing racially inspired verbal abuse on
the streets, including myself. A lot of black people face nightmares
in house hunting. As Jose Fernandez7
reports many black people, especially males, face difficulties in
getting accommodation. This finding is backed up by a Harmony study
which noted that 24% of Irish people surveyed claimed that "people of
a different race or colour should live in separate
districts".8 One could correctly
say that this is a relatively small proportion of Irish society taken
as a whole, yet on the other hand one could also argue that this is a
microcosm reflecting all the major features at all levels of Irish
racism.

Gary Quinn of the Irish Refugee Council9
reports that: "We are getting more and more reports from people who
have been attacked because of their skin colour.. and the frequency
of these attacks is beginning to erode the myth that racism does not
exist in this country". One could easily view these incidents in
isolation and thus misjudge the general Irish attitude towards
foreigners. To underline this, one could quote from the Report of the
European Parliament.10It stated
that: "it is precisely because of the insignificant foreign
population (that) the few cases this report... mention(s) are
indicative of some racism and xenophobia, which could reach more
dangerous levels if there were more foreigners, in particular,
non-Europeans".

State engineered racism refers to acts of racism which are
perpetrated by state legislation, society's organisation and
institutionalised frames of mind. The institutionalisation of
structures that stimulate racism may be achieved consciously or
unconsciously. This type of racism manifests itself by the fact that
it does not leave room for the realisation of rights by non-whites.
Neither can non-whites expect protection in such a system, nor does
it encourage avenues for their protection outside the formal
protection of all citizens.

Lack of representation of black achievements in world
development

So far, I have tried to give an overview of the position of
minority groups in Ireland. However, I feel the urge to go a little
bit further, because my own experience makes me believe that what I
have presented so far is not the primary issue in the whole discourse
on racism in Ireland or elsewhere. It is the case that racism has
been there for centuries. Racism had been the ideology of the
colonial powers - racism as a reflection of their new consciousness
of power and as a justification for their claim to world domination.
I believe, however, that it was academia that gave racism a
theoretical formulation and a scientific basis and thus its modern
currency. One could mention, for instance, the anthropologists who
pioneered studies in Third World countries and, applying evolutionary
theories, identified the so-called 'primitive societies'. Among these
academics were the Germans Blumenbach and Meiners; the French
Gobineau and Virey; the Dutch Camper and Lavater and, in the
English-speaking world, the famous Malinowski and Radcliff Brown.
These academics not only invented the concept of 'race', but they
also imposed a scale on human kind according to which, of course,
blacks were at the bottom and whites at the top. Blumenbach started
the practice of creating a hierarchy of the 'races' from an aesthetic
point of view, and this was then refined to the method of skull
comparison whereby a standard of bodily beauty was established. It
was these academics, the first to place racism on a scientific
footing in the academic world, who gave currency to the expressions
"beautiful and white", as against "ugly and
black".11

One could argue that all these are old fairy tales. However, these
old stories are being revitalised in our present day. A current
example could be seen in what is happening in the University of
Ulster. John Connolly, in an article entitled "Of Race and Right" in
the Irish Times,12 gave a
detailed account of how a Professor of Psychology in the University
of Ulster, Richard Lynn, has been receiving funds from the Pioneer
Fund. Connolly noted that the Pioneer Fund was established in 1936 by
Harry Laughlin and Frederick Osborn, two American scientists with
suitable Nazi credentials. According to Connolly, the main concern of
the Pioneer Fund is to "encourage research into race and, in
particular, into eugenics" (the study of race improvement by
selective breeding). Connolly goes further to highlight that the main
interest of the Pioneer Fund was and probably still is the
"...improvement of the white race...". The article reported that
Professor Richard Lynn has already received a total of $325,000 from
this fund and this has been going on since the early 1990s. It can be
assumed that Professor Lynn is well aware of the nature and
philosophy of the Pioneer Fund. If this is true, it is indeed a bad
reflection on the academic world. This is one incident which has come
to light. One could wonder what else is happening of which we are
unaware.

The above discussion has given hints as to how academia has been
part and parcel of the project that
Garvey13 described as follows:
"whites have tried to rob the Black man of his proud past... Blacks
have a beautiful history of their own and none of any other race can
truly write it but themselves". The achievements of blacks in world
development have been made invisible. For instance, the same article
we have discussed above revealed that Professor Lynn is also involved
with an anthropology journal called Mankind Quarterly, which once
claimed that: "Pure Negroid blood never evinced highly intelligent
abilities" and that no black nation had made any worthwhile
contribution to the life of man in over 5,000
years.14

It is this invisibility of the achievements of blacks that has
fuelled racism against blacks over the centuries. Because capitalist
societies only recognise achievements that can be translated into
monetary terms, the portrayal of blacks as poverty stricken,
criminals, etc., has led many, the Irish included, to view blacks as
the burdens of history. But did you know that the inventor of the
seed planter was a black man, Henry Blair in 1834; that the inventor
of the multiple-effect vacuum evaporation process in 1846 was a black
man, Horbert Rillieux; that the inventor of the first electric lamp
with a carbon filament was a black man, Lewis Latimer (after the
civil war); that the inventor of the shoe lasting machine in 1891 was
a black man, Jan Matzeliger; that the inventor of the automatic
lubricator for use on locomotive engines in 1872 was a black man,
Elijah McCoy; that the inventor of a belt fastener for sewing machine
in 1921 was a black man, Garret Morgan, who also invented the smoke
inhalator in 1914 and in 1923 the automatic traffic
light.15 Academics have made
their achievements invisible and hence themselves too.

The history of the world is continually being rewritten to exclude
all black achievements. Ancient Egyptians are constantly portrayed as
whites, but anyone who has visited the tombs of the Pharaohs and
Queens of Egypt will clearly see that many were black, including the
most famous Cleopatra. Academia has made all this invisible.

Reflection in the Irish Universities

Academia could play an important role in raising awareness of
racism, but if we examine the course curricula in Irish colleges, we
find that racism is hardly targeted at all. In UCC, for instance,
only the departments of Adult Education and Applied Social Studies
offer full courses on racism. However, in both departments they are
offered as optional courses, with the result that the proportion of
students attending these courses is, relatively speaking, very small.
Gender studies, by contrast, have been promoted, both world-wide and
in Ireland. Sexist language has been reduced or, at least, people are
more cautious and try to be more gender neutral. With respect to
language which is biased against blacks, however, nothing has been
done to bring about change. Whereas 'chairman' has changed to
'chairperson' in politically correct circles, expressions such as
blackmail, black market, black day, black Friday, etc., remain firmly
entrenched. One can argue that, surely, users of such terminologies
do not intend black people, and that only a paranoid person would
make such an association. I beg to disagree. If it was important to
change sexist language because of the connotations it carries, I
believe the same should apply to 'black' terminologies. The academia
in Ireland has done little or nothing to bring this to the level of
reflection and discourse.

Even using the terms racism, racist, etc., does injustice, in that
it perpetuates the harm that is inflicted on the victims and reduces
the gravity of the misdeeds of the perpetrators. When black people
have attacked white people, it has been referred to as 'barbaric',
'animalistic', 'irrational', 'unintelligent', among other things. For
example, in some parts of Africa the first contact with Europeans was
greeted with violence by the Africans. The Europeans interpreted this
as animalistic because only an animal attacks what it is not used to.
On the other hand, for over 200 years, Europeans have attacked
blacks. This has been called racism, but not 'animalistic',
'barbaric', 'irrational' and 'unintelligent'. With every incident,
well-wishers claim that more interracial understanding will end
discriminations. This is an issue which could be highlighted by
academics. Perhaps people who perpetrate racism would be less
inclined to do so if they knew that their behaviour would be seen as
animalistic, barbaric, irrational and unintelligent.

Footnotes

1: Curriculum Development Project Steering Group
(ed.), Setting the Context for Change; Northern Curriculum
Development Project; Central Council for Education and Training in
Social Work; Leeds; 1991. P.42.Return to Main
Text